it has been a while since I wrote to you last.
How are you doing?
Have you been getting out of the house?--my mom has been asking me.
I have been riding my bike a lot, and when I have a chance, washing my face in the lake. I have been remembering poetry can be simple. Though I do not know if this is poetry.
Blog, I want to share with you something I wrote a while ago, before Bridgeport feels like a ghostly edge of my material form.
Are you out there? This is for you:
Land does not forget the mouths
that feed on it
I take the Halsted bus almost every
day. I walk through the empty lot on 31st street. I do not know what
occupied this space before I arrived to the neighborhood. The land itself is a
sheet of concrete, slowly breaking as the earth shifts; plants have begun to
sprout and it feels like gravel below your feet—an ancient, midcentury glazier.
In the mornings it is full of life—pigeons seem to pilgrimage from all walks of
the neighborhood. I know that spring has come again when a pigeon, gliding to
land, feet prepared for below, caressed my head beneath its wing, like Jesus
wrapped in blankets.
There can be over a hundred birds in
the lot, on a given morning. They come here to feed, amongst other things. The
pigeons relationship to the space and architecture has formed through their
diet—they are given left over Little Caesar’s pizzas, each morning. I was
speechless the first morning I watched a man wheel a cart filled with pizza
boxes to the lot. I sat and watched as he opened each cardboard container, and
meticulously tore them into pieces small enough to fit in pigeons’ mouths,
throwing them to the center of the empty lot, as more and more swirled in the
sky above.
I made myself comfortable, waving to
the man to signify I had come for the communion. I took out my headphones, and
leaned against the telephone pole; by afternoon there will be a line of birds
sitting and looking down on the slow foot traffic passing through. The birds
camouflage as the day progresses—sometimes you have to stare into the sun to
see their contour, as they streak across the sky from one location to the next.
But right now, we are all here together.
There are a thousand voices that can
be heard. Each its own discernable timbre. They must be talking to one another
in a language I am not in the know about. I feel thankful to be welcomed into
this space. They knew I was coming from a block away. No one scattered upon my
arrival, and I feel as though my own breathing, the rise and fall of my chest,
is a part of the ascending sound; this droning noise makes me rely on my body.
I can feel the tensing tendrils of the pigeons, when I inch forward. I step
back to the pole. This is how close they like me.
The heard is beginning to disperse.
Upward to roof of the Cricket wireless, to the electric line above the adjacent
alley, some leave entirely. All the pizzas are gone; the empty boxes are
stacked on top of one another, in the cart. There is no pizza left on the
ground—it has all been eaten. The man turns to me and waves. He smiles, showing
all of his teeth. Pushing the cart in front of himself, he disappears too.
In the time since visited the lot,
construction has begun on a Starbucks. The lot is fenced off. Behind the fence,
with attached fabric obscuring visibility, there several large construction
vehicles. I felt discouraged, depressed that the pigeons would not be eating
their pizza in the lot anymore, and curious about their relationship to the
architecture of the neighborhood will change.
I walked to Henry C. Palmizano
park—central to the neighborhood, it is the highest point accessible. Initially a quarry, converted into a dump, and later formed into a park, it is an uncanny reminder of the neighborhood’s evolutionary track.
I
descended the hill to the man-made pond. I was pessimistic about seeing any
pigeons—it was afternoon and I worried the urbanite birds would be turned off
by the “natural” environment.
A
mass of people were gathered at the edge of pond, on a metal overhang. As I
moved closer to the group, I started to discern what they watching.
A
small patch of ice still existed, despite the early spring weather. On the ice,
an open box of pizza lay in the center of a small group of pigeons and a couple
of ducks. It looked like an altar. At first I was intrigued and equally
relieved. The entanglement of the architecture and pigeons was deeper than I previously
imagined. For today, I walked on, towards my home. I did not want to intrude;
whereas I had been acknowledged by the pigeons in the lot, here I was not. At
the pond, unlike the lot, the species ate their pizza without looking in my
direction, making noise, or motioning me in anyway. As I walked off, everyone
continued to eat.
